Mick Herron has been writing about the Slow Horses, a group of MI5 miscasts, since 2010; however, the launch of the Apple TV+ show in 2022, led by Gary Oldman, has brought the brand to a wider readership. The show has become one of Apple’s best-loved titles and introduced a whole new audience to Herron and his work. There is even now a second Herron series arriving on the platform, Down Cemetery Road, based on an earlier series of Oxford-set novels.
There’s never been a shortage of great spy novelists from the UK, with the likes of John Le Carré, Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene and more household names, continuing to be read by sizable fanbases. The unique nature of the world Herron has created does separate him from the pack, but he has come closest to being labelled the next Le Carré.
The tone of the books and indeed the show is what helps to make this series stand out, where George Smiley and co can be labyrinthine at times, Jackson Lamb’s one-liners and the interplay between the Slough House team bring a faster pace, with these feeling like real people who have made mistakes and been punished for it. Marcus deals with gambling issues, while Shirley has her own drug problems; these aren’t things other writers have had the time to explore, and it’s these flaws that have made them endearing to readers.
While there is humour at the heart of the books and a real grounded nature for many of the characters, there is no shortage of suspense. Herron, to his credit, is not afraid to take out members of the team; across the nine-novel series, several fan favourites meet a sticky end. It’s never in a way that feels cheap, however, with plenty of quirky characters filling the void, and the loss of each team member felt in the plot of the next novel.
Herron’s world-building is another thing that has helped him cement his reputation as one of Britain’s premier espionage writers. There is real character building across the series, several of the team after a few scrapes unsure if they want to carry on in their line of work. Beyond the main novels, there is a wealth of additional treats from the John Batchelor novellas, which Herron has sadly put on hold for the time being, to standalone but interconnected novels like The Secret Hours and Reconstruction that flesh out the machinations of the wider world and allowing side plots and characters room to breathe. Whether or not these get the TV treatment is up in the air, but there is no drop off in quality with The Secret Hours expanding on some of Jackson Lamb and others’ backstories and earning Herron some of the best reviews of his career to date.
Unlike Fleming, Le Carré and contemporary writers like former CIA analyst David McCloskey, Herron never went into the intelligence service himself or as far as we know given the secrecy around it. He initially didn’t think he was capable of writing a series on MI5 with a background in more crime fiction. This hasn’t held him back; his world feels gritty and authentic, significantly different from, say, Smiley’s Circus or Bond’s MI6, to engage both fans of those classic works and those less well-versed in espionage fiction.
With Clown Town released in September, Mick Herron continues to defy expectations, delivering more delightful dialogue from the mouth of Jackson Lamb and another plot that throws River Cartwright and the Slough House team into an almighty mess. He certainly has no plans of slowing down, writing a stand alone spy novel he expects to complete in 2026 before starting work on the 10th Slough House entry. With the show continuing to go from strength to strength and already renewed for at least a seventh season, the popularity of Herron’s novels will continue to grow and reach new levels of success.
Words by Chris Connor
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